"Crackle..."
The corpse, wrapped slightly in concrete, suddenly sat up and rigidly twisted its neck.
The dried and hardened concrete on its body seemed to crumble to the ground due to the corpse's sudden motion.
You couldn't see any emotion in its gray-white pupils.
Its lips parted slightly, and a hoarse, unpleasant voice emerged:
"Am I alive?"
"Alive my ass!"
"Smack!" went Zhang Feng's hand as he slapped the back of the corpse's head.
"He he he he—"
In the monitoring room.
Lin Rui had already sprung from her chair.
Her eyes were wide open, practically popping out of her face.
Mouth agape, her delicate fingers pointed at the screen, trembling madly.
She kept repeating the word "he" over and over in her mouth.
Clearly, she couldn't articulate anything else.
Lin Rui felt her worldview was about to collapse.
She had asked Zhang Feng to examine the corpse.
Damn it, Zhang Feng just put on a show of corpse reanimation for her?
The victim of the 428 murder case had been sealed in concrete for at least seven days, dead as a doornail—how could it possibly rise?
And it wasn't just that it rose.
Zhang Feng even slapped the corpse on the head?
What the hell... this is insane...
Lin Rui rubbed her eyes, but the scene didn't change.
She pinched herself hard; still, the scene showed no change.
With a "whoosh" sound, Lin Rui, as if her butt was equipped with a rocket, shot out of the monitoring room.
At this moment, Zhang Feng was facing the corpse that had risen and said:
"You're already dead. It's just that the Taoist borrowed your soul from King Yama for a while to let you return to the mortal world and tell your grievance..."
At the word "grievance," the corpse in front of him instantly trembled:
"I died a miserable death, Taoist! A truly miserable death. You must stand up for me, Taoist! I..."
"Smack!" Zhang Feng gave the corpse another slap, then said irritably:
"Keep your voice down!"
"Do you have any idea how unusual it is for you to rise up now? I specially sent everyone away because I didn't want anyone to discover it. You're just going to bring them all back now. Believe me, I'll send you back and let you handle your grievances yourself!"
"Splat!" The corpse covered its mouth, then looked at Zhang Feng and shook its head frantically.
The meaning was clear: "Don't worry, Taoist, I won't shout anymore!"
"Alright." Zhang Feng waved his hand and said to the corpse: "Tell me, how exactly did you die, and who harmed you?"
The corpse nodded wildly, then removed its hands and began to speak:
"Taoist, my name is Li Bing, I'm thirty-five years old, my ID number is... everything started on that summer night last year..."
"Listen!" Zhang Feng made a "T" gesture, looking impatiently at the corpse, said:
"Why don't you start from the time when Pangu created the world?"
As he spoke, he pulled out paper and pen from the table beside him and placed them on the desk, saying:
"Write down the process of your death yourself. Remember, focus on the main points. Got it?"
"Alright, Taoist."
The corpse flipped over from the bed, moving light and strong as an ox. If not for the ashen skin and decaying flesh, who would believe this was a corpse?
It obediently went over to the desk, sat down, and just picked up the pen.
"Bang!" A loud noise echoed.
The door to the morgue was suddenly burst open from the outside.
With a pale face and wide eyes, Lin Rui jumped right in.
Two people and one corpse, staring wide-eyed at each other.
The silence was deafening.
Zhang Feng: "Damn it!! Busted?! How did this woman find out?!"
Lin Rui, with trembling fingers, pointed at the corpse equally stunned sitting at the desk, looked at Zhang Feng, and her whole body trembled:
"You you you you you..."
In the monitoring room, it was "he he he he," now in front of Zhang Feng, she switched to another word as a repeating machine?
"Um..." Zhang Feng stiffly opened his mouth awkwardly, "Director Lin, listen to my excuse..."
But just as Zhang Feng was halfway through his sentence.
The corpse suddenly "splonked!" and dropped the pen it was holding.
Then it went stiff right on the spot.
With a clang, it collapsed onto the floor.
The sudden change filled Zhang Feng's forehead with anxious lines.
Covering his forehead, Zhang Feng nudged the rigid body flat on the floor:
"What are you doing?"
Unexpectedly, the corpse opened one eye, winked at Zhang Feng, and whispered:
"Taoist, there's an outsider, act, keep acting! See how good my acting is!"
Zhang Feng's gaze immediately stiffened:
"Were you this cheeky when you were alive?"
"Hurry and get up, we're already exposed, what's with the pretense?!"
"Are we... exposed?" The corpse appeared puzzled, wobbling as it got up:
"I think I did a great job, Taoist, is your acting bad?"
This nearly made Zhang Feng lose his temper and send the corpse back through Ghost Gate.
"Ah—" Lin Rui suddenly let out a scream she'd been suppressing for who knows how long.
"Zombie revival!!!"
Her shrill cry pierced the air, and Lin Rui immediately turned to run.
"Damn it!" Seeing this, Zhang Feng chased after her without a second thought.
He absolutely couldn't let Lin Rui spread the word!
He could manage one or two people, but if everyone found out...
Then what was he supposed to do?
Would he be sent to some strange place for dissection or study?
Of course, as Zhang Feng ran out, he didn't forget to call back to the corpse:
"Finish writing, and then lie back down!"
It happened to be work hours.
Lin Rui's scream echoed through the corridor and soon caught the attention of several officers at the division.
Officer Hu, who'd just stepped out, also turned back.
At this moment, Zhang Feng had caught Lin Rui by the arm.
Lin Rui still struggled as officers ran up from afar.
Lin Rui also pointed at Zhang Feng and screamed: "He he he..."
"Mmm—!"
Lin Rui's mouth was covered.
The approaching officers paused.
The entire division fell silent.
For no other reason than that Zhang Feng's mouth covered Lin Rui's mouth.
Lin Rui's eyes were bulging like copper bells, her half-frame glasses hanging off her cheek, fogged by Zhang Feng's breath.
The eyes, full of starlight, trembled violently.
But as time passed, Lin Rui actually closed her eyes, her body began to soften, collapsing into Zhang Feng's arms.
Zhang Feng, too, cautiously hugged Lin Rui around the waist, dragging her back to the autopsy room.
From the end of the corridor, officers stood frozen, their faces bearing ambiguous expressions.
Especially Officer Hu, whose eyes shone with gossipy light almost jumping out of their sockets:
"Oh my god! Little Zhang really is a man!"
"How did they end up kissing in the middle of an autopsy?"
"My goodness, morgue romance?! Damn! Just thinking about it is thrilling!!"
Turning around, he saw colleagues behind him, all like himself, even eager to go check how far it had gone.
Officer Hu quickly coughed and sternly said:
"What are you all doing?! Have you no work? Go, go, back to work!"
Back in the autopsy room, Lin Rui's body is soft, her eyes closed, trembling gently.
Zhang Feng whispered softly beside Lin Rui's crystal-clear earlobe:
"Every day you forget countless things, why not forget this too?"
...